Hungarian Freedom Fighters

Peter Green reports from the village of Titley in Herefordshire where a diplomatic row has broken out over the resting place of the former leader of the Hungarian army, Lazar Meszaros, who died in the village in 1858. The Hungarian freedom fighters who fled their country during the 1956 Soviet invasion are not happy that the Moscow backed government in Budapest is requesting the return of the body of a man they consider to be a symbol of Hungarian freedom.

Lazar Meszaros was a commander in the Hungarian army who became a national hero during Hungary's struggle for independence from Austria in 1848. That revolution was crushed by a Russian invasion and the general was exiled. In 1858, whilst staying with Lady Langdale at her home 'Eywood' near the village of Titley in Herefordshire, he was taken ill and died. His last will requested that his remains were not to be returned to Hungary until the last foreign soldier had left. In 1991, a few months after the final Soviet troops had departed, his remains were returned and reburied in his birthplace of Baja in Hungary.